madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-what can I say, except, you're welcome, readers-

buckle up bitches

<3

"I told you, boy, your flames are not strong enough to trouble me. Fool."

Leo stared up at the giant's smoky form. He felt like he might vomit up an entire black hole that would engulf everything in sight until there was nothing left but this horrible stark feeling of being in a limbo like shock. Like the space in between the pulled trigger and the bullet wound. 

There was scuffling behind him. The faces were blurry and skulls looked up from the floor with gaping eyes as hollow as his chest.

Everything was so very hot.

"Shhh, pequeño dragón, vuelve a dormir," his mum soothed, and brushed back his hair from his burning up forehead. He looked up at her, drowning in sweat and tears. His fevers used to kill him. "Te sentirás mucho mejor por la mañana."

Leo tried not to blink because what if he forgot what she looked like and then she belonged to no one? What if he forgot her?

"It's not gonna happen again... right?" Jason asked quietly, his eyes the colour of the bewitched sky above them. He looked past Leo's shoulder to the empty cabin they strolled past. White marble was carved with peacock feathers and swirls that reminded Leo of whirlpools he could drown in.

A tornado of bubbles messed up his hair.

Grit filled his clothes and scratched his skin and Greek fire glowed above the water he was sinking in. Green as the Northern lights. He couldn't breathe through the smoke. Seaweed wrapped around his ankles.

"What are you doing, little dude?" Leo asked with a chuckle, looking down at the hands on his shoes. They were scarred and covered with lightning McQueen band aids. Then his shoelaces were tied together in a quick little bow.

He rolled his eyes as Harley giggled from underneath the bunkbed. "Nothin!"

"Nothing," Piper said. "He remembers nothing about me. He doesn't remember everything I did for him. He's my dad, and he doesn't remember anything. 

There was nothing left. Everything burned.

"I told you, boy, your flames are not strong enough to trouble me. Fool."

Leo couldn't breathe. His lungs were constricting and there was fire in his fists and his hair was being touched and his shoes were tangled and he could hear his friends voices.

Leo couldn't breathe. His lungs were constricting and there was fire in his fists and his hair was being touched and his shoes were tangled and he could hear his friends voices. He gasped for air.

It came, even though his throat crackled with menace and pain. His eyes were glued shut with tears. Leo only croaked when he tried to speak, his shirt damp with sweat, lungs collapsing in on themselves. He would never admit it, but he did flail a fair bit. He would also like to imagine that the sobbing came from someone else. Panic clawed at his chest. Someone was shaking his leg.

"Oi! Bad boy supreme, you're awake now!" Piper snapped quickly. There were arms around his middle. He sunk into the whale shark behind him and let out a breath.

Piper was staring down at him, and then she wiped the tears off his face with her sleeve, and that just defeated the purpose of the act in the first place because more fell. He sniffed and tried to sit up properly. His back cracked.